Is Best of both Worlds overrated?

[DarthTom]

I re-watched Best of Both Worlds on G4 last night after having not seen in in several years. When the episode came out originally it was amazing and one of the highest rated [in terms of viewers and accolades] of all of Star Trek.

Watching it later, I feel like it's one of the most overrated in Star Trek. The big let down of putting the Borg to sleep as a plot resolution really sucked.

What the episode lacked was for the cube and the Borg to pose a legitimate threat to the earth. I wanted to see massive assimilation, Star Fleet headquarters over taken by the borg. A massive ground fight for the planet.

So were you disappointed with in retrospect?

 

[cardinal biggles]

They probably blew a big chunk of their effects budget for the season on BOBW2, so I doubt an assimilation of Starfleet headquarters or huge epic ground battles were in the cards.

The episode is great until they get to Data's lab. Putting the Borg to sleep is an interesting idea, and it certainly exposes a weakness of their hive mind, but yeah, it's a very mundane ending after Part 1 and the first half of Part 2.

 

[DarthTom]

cardinal biggles said:
The episode is great until they get to Data's lab. Putting the Borg to sleep is an interesting idea, and it certainly exposes a weakness of their hive mind, but yeah, it's a very mundane ending after Part 1 and the first half of Part 2.

Exactly up to Data's lab the episode was great. Then the Borg are put to sleep [a solution it seems that is all but forgotten for future dealings with them] and it's over.

Really a let down.

 

[Jaro Stun]

Maybe the Borg improved their encryption schemes after the incident

 

[benny]

There are still some great parts of the episode after Data's lab. Riker's order to Wes about ramming speed and the subsequent look from Wes. The Borg ship blowing up.

But yeah, the second part suffers from what all Trek part 2's suffer from: too much story and not enough time. Part I will always be a television classic. I don't find a damn thing wrong with it. Part 2 had nowhere to go but down from there.

 

[SmoothieX]

I never minded the sleep command. It shows Picard overcoming the Borg implants/programming and Data interpreting that and devising a creative solution to the problem.

And as mentioned, it shows the weaknedss of a hive mind.

BOBW I was classic and the cliffhanger is still one of my biggest WTF moments ever as cliffhangers weren't so popular back then and I never heard of it before since I was 10.

Part II is a great episode, but it had to follow in some mighty big shoes.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I was about 15 when BOBW part 2 was aired, and even then yeah, I said that It was still good, but if you would've told me that this whole summer that I'd been waiting, that the Borg self-destructed after being told to go to sleep, I would have been a little dissappointed.
I was delighted when peter David's book "Vendetta" came out in the incredibly short time of only 7 months after part 2.

 

[blakbyrd]

SmoothieX said:
I never minded the sleep command. It shows Picard overcoming the Borg implants/programming and Data interpreting that and devising a creative solution to the problem.

And as mentioned, it shows the weaknedss of a hive mind.

BOBW I was classic and the cliffhanger is still one of my biggest WTF moments ever as cliffhangers weren't so popular back then and I never heard of it before since I was 10.

Part II is a great episode, but it had to follow in some mighty big shoes.

Agreed.

 

[Garth Rockett]

Part II is a bit of a letdown after part I, but as benny indicated that's pretty much unavoidable. Just because part II is not as good as one would hope doesn't mean the two-parter is overrated, though. It's still very much deserving of its status as a classic, IMO.

 

[WillsBabe]

The sleep command thing, and the whole of part two was pretty weak, at least far weaker than part one. But, on the other hand, I can forgive it that because, frankly, I can't get over the whole BOBW experience. I know that's pretty hokey but I loved the BOBW cliffhanger and the summer wait so much that the weakness of part two, while I know it's there, doesn't really disappoint me.

 

[Spider]

I'm not sure how overrated it can be, at least on this BBS, when it's been voted as one of the top five TV episodes of all of Star Trek. And it looks like it will make it to the final three. That's means more people like it than think it's over rated.

That's how I see it at least. Now, I can think of other TNG episodes (and other Star Trek episodes from other series) that I would place higher on my own personal list than BOBW, but you can't take away from it the effect it had on people at the time and it's influence on all future Star Trek series.

 

[SmoothieX]

WillsBabe said:
The sleep command thing, and the whole of part two was pretty weak, at least far weaker than part one. But, on the other hand, I can forgive it that because, frankly, I can't get over the whole BOBW experience.

I don't see the sleep command as being any weaker than the Enterprise's major attack on the cube having no effect. That always bothered me more than then sleep command.

I think what those scenes show though are the strength and weakness of the Borg, respectively. The collective mind allowed them to instantly adapt once Picard was plugged in, but it also proved to be a weakness when Data was able to tap into it and trick them into regenerating.

 

[DostoyevskyClone]

Personally, I tend to think it's overrated - 9/10 for the first part, 8/10 for the second. Neither part falls into the 10/10 category (for me) of episodes like 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' 'Parallels,' etc.

 

[Saxman1]

SmoothieX said:
I never minded the sleep command. It shows Picard overcoming the Borg implants/programming and Data interpreting that and devising a creative solution to the problem.

And as mentioned, it shows the weaknedss of a hive mind.

BOBW I was classic and the cliffhanger is still one of my biggest WTF moments ever as cliffhangers weren't so popular back then and I never heard of it before since I was 10.

Part II is a great episode, but it had to follow in some mighty big shoes.

Agree 100%. For those who think TNG never made a decent film, there are classics like this and other two parters (not ALL two parters, but how could you ever hope top BOBW and All Good things?). The Borg never should have returnd after this ep IMHO: post BOBW, each appearance watered them down more.

 

[DarthTom]

DostoyevskyClone said:
Personally, I tend to think it's overrated - 9/10 for the first part, 8/10 for the second. Neither part falls into the 10/10 category (for me) of episodes like 'Yesterday's Enterprise,' 'Parallels,' etc.

Both of those episodes are far superior. Again the sleeping Borg part as a inexpensive plot resolution to the Borg problem was lame.

Another nitpick in general is either the Borg or idiots or the producers / writers think we are. Why are they always only sending 1 cube to assimilate a planet of billions where the anticipate resistance?

 

[Anwar]

Because back then Michael Piller had wanted BOBW to be the last Borg episode, and for that one ship to have been quite possibly the only Borg ship witht heir entire race having been destroyed in that failed invasion.

Afterwards he was overriden and we got Hugh's group.

 

[DarthTom]

Anwar said:
Because back then Michael Piller had wanted BOBW to be the last Borg episode, and for that one ship to have been quite possibly the only Borg ship witht heir entire race having been destroyed in that failed invasion.

Afterwards he was overriden and we got Hugh's group.

I see. Well they make the same stupid error, again in the film First Contact. The Borg really are lousy tacticians in war.

 

[TrueQ]

In a way. Part II was way better, if they could've made Part I just as great, maybe... But yeah, the first encounter with the Borg was really "primitive". The Borg idea is wonderful, just the development of the plot it's let's say 8/10.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I rewatched it the other night, too (or I had it on in the background while I was doing something else.) I was disappointed by part 2 at the time. I wanted a longer story arc at least. (sacrificing a lesser season 3 episode like, say THE LOSS, would be no loss!).

Okay, how did Picard overcome the Borg on his own?

Also, the Borg were distracted by the saucer section's anti-matter spread and the Enterprise's attack long enough for Data and Worf to get onboard and get Picard...yet, before that the Borg cube effortlessly took out some 39 Starfleet ship without appearing to suffer so much as a scratch?

Why were their no life signs at Wolf 359? The borg were on a direct mission and wouldn't waste time to eliminate survivors on life pods. In DS9's premiere we learn there were survivors (and later we learn there were assimilated humans from the battle..somehow). So where did those survivors go? Was this retcon abuse by later Trek or what?

We don't see any fallout from the losses at Wolf 359 until Redemption part 2. Surely, the more hostile races would learn of the deficiency and take advantage of the Federation's diminished defenses (of course in DS9, there were a whooooole lot of ships in Starfleet, so...), but this is something we don't see. It could've been mentioned in THE WOUNDED as a reason for Cardassian remilitarization. So it might be implied.

Did Guinan know that the Enterprise would survive, as well as Picard? After all her "echo" hadn't met Jean Luc in the Nexus yet.

Couldn't Worf and Data also have beamed over an old school bomb inside the borg cube as they rescued Picard? Maybe with techno-babble dampening field to avoid borg sensor detection? (Though if the Borg were concerned about sabotage they could've beamed the Enterprise's away teams into space, couldn't they?)

Isn't awfully convenient that Picard's assimilation didn't involve amputations and eyeball replacements?

 

[RAMA]

PT II wasn't quite as good, but there really wasn't any other way at the time to deal with the Borg. As for ground combat, etc, well that would have left them nowhere to go for future stories. Its not overrated, but I could certainly see a much bigger scale version that could be made in a movie with just the sort of story you're suggesting, however then it becomes an occupation story, and in First Contact, they didn't want to tell that sort of story, so the assimilation of Earth was glossed over.

RAMA