The Best of Both Worlds

How do you end a season of solo missions? With the captain issuing the ultimate 'going solo' ultimatum!

You know it’s a great episode because the first shot of the crew is O'Brien beaming Riker, Data, LaForge, and Worf down to a planet against spooky music. It’s the Borg, of course it is, and everybody is having a pants-wetting knee-wobble about it. Despite the imminent catastrophic threat, everyone is much more interested in whether or not Riker is going to accept the command of the USS Melbourne - Lieutenant Shelby isn’t on board for more than a few more minutes before she announces that she’s after the Commander’s seat. Anyway, who cares about Shelby when there’s a Borg cube to chase down!

The Enterprise-D takes a beating from the Borg, and hides inside an intergalactic smudge. Apparently, the Borg are foxed by phenomena that look like abstract impressionist cloud paintings, and they sit outside the Mutara... I mean, Paulson nebula playing cyber-pinochle and flexing their muscles. Eventually, they lose patience and start setting off depth charges and beaming drones aboard. Worf zaps one (Worf 6, Aliens 8), then they knock him and Riker down (Worf 6, Aliens 9), and kidnap Picard - oh no!

It all builds up to the greatest cliffhanger in Trek history as Picard is transformed into Locutus and Riker has to order the crew to open fire on him. Which brings me to the most important part of this episode: watch the original episode. Do not be tempted to watch the cut that turns this and the next episode into a single cut. This utterly destroys the cliffhanger, it renders it a complete non-event. Whatever you do, watch these two episodes as they originally aired: as two episodes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Words

Vividly do I remember all the frantic speculation around the fan community about whether negotiations between Paramount and Patrick Stewart had broken down and perhaps this episode was an opportunity to write him out of the show. None of this was true, as it happened, but the actual behind-the-scenes story is in my view even more intriguing. It turns out that Michael Piller, who wrote this episode and had been showrunner since episode five of this season, was only on a one year contract and didn’t know if he was coming back. He worked through his feelings about whether to stay or go via the Riker subplot, and this set the pattern for much of what Piller wrote while putting this screenplay together. The exchange between Troi and Riker where he is forced to ask why he is still here was a conversation Piller had with himself as he was trying to decide whether to stay on for another year. Of course, he doesn’t just stay for another year, but for the rest of the show, and the show after this one as well - and the one after that!

Michael Piller revelling in the deliciousness of the Borg set

Apparently, Piller had been trying to write another Borg story ever since he joined the show, but kept running up against problems - chief among which was: how do you write a compelling story about an enemy with no personality? Repeatedly, the writing staff proposed a ‘queen bee’ to act as spokesperson for the Borg, but Piller felt that this undermined what made the Borg unique:

To me, there was something special and frightening about the Borg that their lack of character brought. For a show that dwells and specialises in character to be challenged and possibly destroyed by a characterless villain seemed, to me, to be a special kind of threat. But when we started talking about the cliffhanger and the Borg, we really did talk about who was going to be the queen bee.

When the idea to make Picard into the queen bee finally came together, Piller knew he had what he needed. What he didn’t have - in any shape or form! - was an ending to this story. There wasn’t even an outline for part two until the week before this episode first aired! He did, however, write such lasting catchphrases as “Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile” and “Freedom is irrelevant... death is irrelevant” (surely a Vogon influence here, but Piller never mentioned it anywhere that I could find).

My only complaint is that the idea that Earth is at Sector 001 feels like a colossal insult to the Vulcans who are supposedly the co-founders of the Federation, but let’s just turn a blind eye and enjoy the spectacle, shall we!

Acting Roles

This is Riker’s episode, which seems to have taken everyone involved by surprise as it wasn’t supposed to be. But it’s the addition of Elizabeth Dennehy’s Shelby to spar against Jonathan Frakes that makes it work.

Dennehy, who was Blake on The Guiding Light, and also appeared uncredited in Total Recall prior to this episode, is brilliant in her role because she is believable without being likeable. I imagine this was a lot of fun to play, and Dennehy’s Shelby comes across throughout as especially driven. We’re not in any doubt that she’s a capable officer, for all that her entire reason for being here is to wind up Riker. Best of all, Dennehy drags an incredible performance out of Frakes here, something that really hasn’t happened before now.

Of course, with a dual role as as Picard/Locutus, Patrick Stewart is kept plenty busy as well, and he has a nice personal moment with Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan as he is contemplating their inevitable defeat. Guinan’s speech here isn’t exactly encouraging, mind you - she basically says ‘don't worry, humanity won’t go extinct today’. It’s a long way short of a pep talk! And even if I find it hard to believe that the Borg really do need a spokesperson to take over the Federation, it’s extremely enjoyable watching Stewart’s Locutus staring down his former ‘Number One’ in the nail-wrecking climax.

Also on the guest docket this week is George Murdock as Admiral J.P. Hanson.

Murdock had more than two hundred roles throughout his career, many of them bit parts, but plenty of recurring roles - including Dr Salik in the original Battlestar Galactica. This wasn’t even his first brush with Trek, as he had a role in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier the previous year. Just a small role, though: the credit for it reads ‘God’.

Oh, and look who’s out with a phaser this week? It’s Gates McFadden’s Dr Crusher, who expressly requested Michael Piller write her into the away team, as she was just itching to shoot someone.

And Lieutenant Worf finishes up the third season with a 3-4 score, his third consecutive losing season bringing him to an aggregate 6-9 versus aliens and robots, narrowly missing breaking even this season by just one loss. If only he hadn’t let John Doe kill him last week!

Models, Make-up, and Mattes

So much to love here from the SFX department! Paramount had accepted the logic of going out with a bang, creating franchise momentum that would ensure season four would get off to an amazing start. As such, they bankrolled an extended budget for this show that went well beyond what was left in the coffers at the end of the season - nobody wanted another cost-saving damp squib of a finale like the abysmal “Shades of Grey”. The extra money bankrolled a whole bucket full of wonderful special effects, primarily in terms of make-up and sets.

Sound Stage 16 did double service for the episode, first serving as the crater that used to be the New Providence colony. That’s a matte painting behind the fake rocks to create the sense of depth.

Then, the sets crew had to take it all down and swiftly put together the interior of the Borg cube - a much more complex construction, but one that came together even more magnificently than in “Q Who”.

No new studio miniatures, but the return of both the Excelsior model and of course the Borg cube means that there’s lots to look at, and some of the Borg external shots are newly filmed, particularly around the revisit of the Mutara Nebula that was created for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Much to love in the matte paintings too. Although this painting isn’t the greatest in TNG, you can’t deny it makes for an outstanding way to end the teaser.

And of course, the brilliant Syd Dutton matte painting from “Q Who” is back and shown off even better than ever - spot the little Borg drone milling around in the corner!

The greatest cliffhanger in Trek history, Jonathan Frakes actually acting, Gates McFadden kicking ass, Patrick Stewart as the villain, and a whole mess of SFX fun to watch? It’s hard not to admit that they managed to end season three on one hell of a bang!