Hello and welcome to Appointment Television, a podcast about the TV you want to make time for. I'm Margaret and with me are I'm Katherine and I'm Andrew and this week our TV book club on Star Trek the next generation continues into like vast and uncharted territory. This week is Borg week. Oh no.
Where we're encountering iconic villains the Borg and learning that resistance is futile. We're going to be talking about four episodes. We are going to be talking about season two, episode 16, Qhu, where Q and wild shenanigans introduces the enterprise to the Borg. We're going to be talking about two harder, the best of both worlds, which starts with season three, episode 26, and then continues with season four, episode one, which is cool.
Yeah. Let me just go on. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit when we get to the episode. There's like a whole thing.
We're going to have to. And then we are going to continue immediately with the aftermath of that in season four, episode two, family. So, Andrew, what made you pick these four episodes? So we've talked a little bit about serialization in Star Trek.
Broadly, TNG is not serialized. And then the spinoff showed DS9, Deep Space Nine, for the non-fans out there. Did like starting, especially in like its third season, it picked up this big like war arc that carried on pretty much throughout the run of the show. Like they still have standalone episodes because that's just part of Star Trek's DNA, but that was the first Trek show to like really across the entire length of the show.
Tell one big story. Now, TNG does dabble in it a little bit. And you're seeing some of it here with Borg Week. There are a bunch of little other arcs that we're kind of ignoring for time.
Like, Worf has this whole thing where he's, and I think you touch upon it just a little bit. Yeah, he gets this commended. Yeah. Yeah.
He doesn't even hear his own understand, but they're really great at OptiPairns and they do. He's not, he's not a, he's not a Volcan. Yeah, he's like, he's struggling with like reconciling his human life and his clean on life. No, I corrected you ages ago.
Really? I'm really nickel worried that one. There's this whole, there's this whole thing where data has like an evil brother named Lor. Yeah.
Yes. Data and Lor. Yes. That's the weirdest.
That doesn't make any sense. Didn't think he could see the episode measure of a man. How can Data have a brother? The entire premise is that Data is soo-e-gen-arys and I'm pretty sure I pronounce that right.
Close enough. Soo-e-gen-arys? Um, really cannot keep hanging up for your pronunciation bullshit. No, no, we can't.
There are more Borg episodes. They're just like a bunch of little, little serialized bits through out. Yeah. So it looks like when TNG is telling one story, even though most of it is like concentrated in like that three episode run, it is picking up a thing that they played with in season two and it even like they did something a little similar in season one where like people were getting infected with these weird alien bug parasites, but the Borg I think is a better version of the same idea.
So, yeah, that plus the Borg is like a very culturally relevant villain that I think gets referenced a lot outside of Sartrecht. Yeah, it's true. So now you just have a deeper understanding. Yes.
So, the creepyness. Yes. Yeah, we're going to have a conversation about like the number of different, I think, iconic villains on sci-fi shows, whose like main goal is just like a race person identity and in force conformity. Mm-hmm.
Well, we'll talk about it, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's like, okay, so Margaret, generally, what is the basic idea of Q-Hoo? I mean, this is like a great question.
Because like, it was a little bit of a confusing episode. I haven't been mostly down, but like Q, the mischief maker, we remember from the terrible pilot of the show is back again. That's the pocket like Loki figure, who's the trickster. About whom I know listener friend, Emily, had like deep adolescent romantic fantasies.
Interesting. And I think we're going to get to talk about next week on Q-Week. Interesting. Or I should say next to the book club installment on Q-Week.
So he kidnaps Captain Picard and tries to get him to agree to let him be like a member of the Enterprise which I don't really get like the motivation for that. And then Captain Picard is like, fuck no. You're terrible. he throws a hissy fit and has them encounter the Borg for the first time.
Is that roughly the difference? That's basically it. So he's flung the Enterprise. I think the number they give later is 7,000 light years from the Perm position.
It's way out into unexplored by the Federation space. And the show does that sometimes when it wants to invent a new alien without really having to answer questions about why that alien had never been seen before. With limitless space, you can just do that as many times as you want. Yeah, sometimes they go through mysterious wormholes.
And that's how they get to the other time. The space nine had a wormhole to another place. Like Voyager itself got flung away into another quadrant. It decided to make its way home.
Like that was the whole premise of the thing. You got to stand top of those wormholes. Yeah, I know. It's like why do you go close to them?
Why? Why? They don't have that wormhole situation. It never worked out.
Never. So they encounter the Borg. And we learn about the Borg the following things that they like destroying entire civilizations and that they did so to Geynon whoopie Goldberg's civilization. Also that whoopie, the Geynon is like not just like normal person.
She's like 2,000 years old. And she and the Q. I'm sorry. They refer to something about the Q something.
What is it? Continuum. The Q continuum. They know each other.
Apparently there was like a incident with Q that we're not going to get to watch where he tried to recruit Vryker for the Q continuum and Vryker turned him down. We didn't get the name for Vryker in these episodes. Turned down, fine, and women's opportunities. Yep.
So and we learn that they have a collective consciousness, that they're like part person and part robot, and that they like incubate their babies in like. Little dresser drawers. Yeah, little dresser drawers. Yes.
They fly around in ships that are shaped like cubes. Like giant cubes. Super doesn't seem. Well, I like the giant cubes.
Because if you think about it, like they don't have to be aerodynamic because they live entirely in space. And there's no point for them to have any kind of aerodynamic element to it. And so instead it's like what if you just built like a shape, a really basic. I don't know why they wouldn't be just sphere in that.
And they do like later when they start adding more shit to the Borg and like rewinding them eventually. They do add other shapes. All their ships are just different shapes. Yeah.
And you know obviously we're going to talk about Q who first. But I do want to say that it is hysterical that when the board come back in best of both worlds part one. And they're like, wait, there is a ship. What is it?
What is it? And then it's like a giant cube. And you're like, how did you not program your computer to recognize a giant cube flying through space? How did you not like put that sucker in?
Yeah. Anyhow, yes. Back to it. Back to Q who?
Yeah. So Guynan is like this Yoda figure sort of. Yeah. She's another Star Trek character where they give her like they give her otherworldly superhuman abilities.
But they define them really poorly. So they can just do whatever serves the story with her. Yeah. Or something.
And again, the hats. The hats are really the hats. Yeah, they really are. Yes.
Just like very architectural knit caps that Bob Marley would put on over dreadlocks. Yeah. But they're more of a Frank Gary. Exactly.
He gave a structure. Yes. Yeah, it's interesting to see here because this is an earlier episode. Like the first time Guynan calls up to the bridge where cards like, hey, what are you doing calling me?
And so later in the episode. The card is missing. That's why shouldn't you get up to the deck? Sorry, yes.
Why don't you go calling up to the bridge? And so in the episodes that we watched for the last installment, which were a little bit farther into the series, that relationship had been more established since she was able to be like, hello, I have funny feelings. Funny hat. And so this is instead sort of an earlier instance of that where people are like, maybe the bartender is actually like a superhuman, extra sensory something.
Yeah. And the interesting thing about her character is that there is no episode where they meet Guynan. That is interesting. There's no episode where they specifically introduce her.
She's just kind of there. And then you get to know her over snippets of many episodes over the, I think she was in seasons two to six. So like the middle five seasons of the show. Yeah, I like that actually.
Like it, I mean, it's a very interesting thing to do with like the second most famous actor on your show. It's true. Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. I guess I may have been more famous than Patrick Stewart. Probably, yes. That's true.
I'm sure she actually was. You're right. I kind of like that not introduction for her just because I think it feels like I like this. I like imagining this like fan-fic version where she just showed up one day and like did some kind of magical Guynan thing that like just like worked her way into the mind of the enterprise.
And no one, everyone was like, oh yeah, that's Guynan. She's a cheer-up. Yeah, Guynan. Yeah.
There is like it's hinted that there's something in her and she in Picard Pass where like he did something to help her out or something. And they both have like this mutual trust and respect. But it's never like there's not a guy. We're not going to have Guynan in week.
Like this is not the role that she plays on the show most of the time. Yeah. That's too bad. I wouldn't mind Guynan in week.
I know. There'd be like so many expressions she can make where it's like, I don't know why, but I know something's up. So let's talk about the Borg and like the whole idea of the Borg and why the idea of the Borg is so scary to the Jean-Rod and Barry idea of like what the Star Trek sort of individual should be. Sure.
Because this seems like central to why they come back as a villain. And also, I mean, I hate to diss. I hate to diss Shatner, right? Like everyone loves Shatner.
Sure. I think some people don't. Probably. But I guess I mean he's just, you know, he's iconic in a way that, yeah.
Yeah. But there is something particular about like Picard versus the Borg. His sort of style as a captain and his like super individual. And he has that, he has that like there's a line in one of the episodes where data's like what I've calculated that, like there's no way that like the normal thing to do would be to do this.
But I bet that's in Data's day, right? Back from the previous, yeah. Or Picard has to make a hard choice. And then he makes like the unconventional Captain E.
Choice. And it's not that Shatner wouldn't do that. Like he was constantly doing really dumb stuff to the Enterprise just like all the time. But Picard has this really, you know, he sort of embodies the responsible Captain who's, he's like a little bit of a wild card and like makes interesting risky choices.
But is constantly aware of the whole crew and the whole ship. And he's like. Yeah. And especially with regard to the individualism of his crew.
Yeah. I feel like he embodies very much not the American melting pot aesthetic. But what we learned in our Canadian literature is the Billick Canadian unifying theory, which is that they're a mosaic. Right.
Just like each component maintains its distinct identity. But they're placed together into our homelowniest hole that is larger than themselves. Right. Yes.
I feel like the Enterprise is a mosaic. Sure. Yes. So there's that about Picard.
And then if you talk to. And it worked as like a green smoothie. If you talk to like Star Trek Greybeard to prefer the original series to the next generation. I'm sorry, Greybeard?
Yeah, Greybeard's like old people who've been around for a long time. Just like weird as that colloquialism come from? It's definitely a thing in like text circles where you talk about people who've been around since like the 70s. I can tell it's a thing because Andrew didn't have like a smirk.
As he said, Greybeard's like, oh no. I didn't make that up. That's not some goofy dumb bullshit. No, no, no, no.
And then I was just curious like where Greybeard is like a cat or a comes from. And it makes me a cat. I am aware of it through the tech. But I don't know if that's where I came from.
Both, you know, scornful of older people and femininity would be invisible. Yeah, that's pretty much tech in the 70s. Anyways, Greybeard's is accurate. It is accurate I think for this because like these fandoms are like overwhelmingly male in a really shitty kind of way.
But for people who prefer the original series to the next generation, the criticism is that they always just like talk their way out of everything instead of shooting guns aliens. Right. If there's anything about these episodes that I feel like is weak is there's like so much shooting guns and aliens. There's a little bit.
Yeah. And yes, Picard, like his style is diplomacy. Like it is usually to try and reach out and to understand and to negotiate and to talk through stuff with people. And then he runs up into this like scary alien race that's like, hey, we're going to wreck your shit.
Resistance is futile. We don't want to talk to you because we don't care about you. Like get over here so we can assimilate you. Yeah, I guess what it is is, is that it feels like Picard is a brain and shatners of body, right?
Yes. Although the dark stuff is better than me. So he's way better. But we'll talk about Patrick Stewart's body a little later.
He really will. He's very pertinent to our conversation and family. Sure is. Sure is.
But I mean, but the Shatner's style, even though it was sort of personality and swagger, it was presence had a lot more to do with what was, even if he wasn't going to shoot the gun, he would just kind of stand there and then like exude charisma and then the rest would happen. Whereas Picard, you know, we watched another episode for this where like the whole bit was that he had to say something stupid in an alien language and was like practicing, right? Yeah. Yeah.
And so I think that's why it feels like it's not just the Borg. It's like Picard versus the Borg. And that is why that threat feels so, so prominent. And then the show does a pretty good job with dealing with, like again, because it's so serialized, we don't see a lot of like cumulative experience stacking up for people.
But the show, like in these episodes, in future Borg episodes, and then especially in the movie first contact, which you could basically watch like right after a family and just get like a pretty continuous arc. Interesting. Like it deals with his trauma. About having been hard Borg.
Yeah, like fairly well, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And like I don't want to say being Borg seems pretty bad, but like I don't know that it's actually that much more psychologically traumatizing than like being puppet manipulated into thinking you've lived a whole life you haven't, so that like an alien culture isn't truly dead.
Yeah, you wouldn't think so. But you really wouldn't think so. But again, I guess that's sort of why it's so the most interesting for me that it is Picard, right? It is like the alien that is like most designed.
And she does this of the card. Yeah. So, okay, so we should move into the best of both worlds than we do. Yeah.
So I'm going to say that it is interesting to me that you introduce the Borg as a concept in episode 16 of season two. And then like you don't cash in until like season three, episode 26. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they had made the case that they, the Borg were really far out because, and I think it's specifically because they didn't want the show to have to become all about the Borg.
Because if you run into like aliens that want to take over your entire society and then they're just around, it's like, right. Yeah, it's hard for those show not to get taken over by them. Well, I mean, it's good sense. But like at the same time Sherlock introduced Moriarty and like what?
Episode three, season one. So I'm just saying many, many other television shows don't have that patience, you know, about introducing the big bad. So episode 26, season three, the Borg are coming. And we know it at the outset of the episode.
So they're like extra. Extra? Enterprise is part of a larger federation. Starfleet, yeah.
There are extra starfleet officers around. There's the Great Years. The United Federation of Planets is like the diplomatic body and then Starfleet is mostly military. But also science, it's a little won't be.
Well, because military is like, they're kind of iffy on that. They'd rather not have to have one anyhow. Sort of the military, but they're like, yeah. So there's Horny Great Beard, who has the hots for cut rate going close.
Yeah. Those are like extra characters. And I gather from looking at this Wikipedia page that the man I'm referring to as Horny Great Beard is Admiral Hansen. And I'm calling him that for like the one reason that they have like a meeting with him and Commander Shelby, who's an expert on the Borg and has what Catherine referred to as Space Jellyfish Hair, which accurate.
And also has like the face of like Glenn Close in 1989 when she was for some reason playing femme fatales rather than as is her natural watch playing Albert knobs. Yeah. Another famous historical cross dressers. Yeah.
Or I should say transgender individuals. I have seen Albert knobs, so I'm not like a hundo sure on which of those two things. Was actually the case. Albert knobs is meant to be.
Yes. Either way. Yes. So they know the Borg is coming.
They know the Borg is coming. I wasn't real worried. Yep. There is some tension established early on because Commander Shelby, AKA cut rate going close, AKA Space Jellyfish is like ambitious and like ready to take on a new post and Admiral Horny Greybeard wants her to become first mate.
Yeah. First officer. First officer. Sure.
The other one. First officer of the Enterprise. But like Riker is still there. And Riker should have moved on to be a Commander in his own right.
But. Captain. OK. He's already a Commander.
OK. Captain in his own right. It's right on the credits. It says sign Jonathan Freix as Commander William Riker.
But I gather that I'm not correct when I say that. I'm just like my instinct is. Anyways. I should have moved on to be a Captain in his own right.
But instead he's just like hanging out as Captain Picard's number two. And Shelby's like you're standing in my way. And she's all fiery. So the Borg have probably wrecked this planet.
They go down to check the planet out. They confirm that it was wrecked by the Borg. In the process Shelby takes more initiative than she should. And Riker is all mad about it.
And Picard is like who else needs to take more initiative than they should. You. And the most important thing that happens is the Borg try to like bargain to get Picard. And I think the bargaining fails.
And then they just steal him. Well, they start trying to just steal him. And they can't for a while. And then they do.
Then they do. OK. Yeah. The Borg are not negotiators.
So they get the Borg. And they rather the Borg gets Picard. Yeah. And they make it clear that they're planning to assimilate Earth.
And that they've decided that Picard is like the perfect mouthpiece. Because he's this hero. So they're going to assimilate him. And then through him assimilate Earth.
Yeah. And the episode ends when they've realized that one thing they might be able to do to destroy the Borg ship is like, I don't know, something with the energy shields. It's very risky. Yeah.
So I'm not going to correct you all. Because it's all the. The Becca no Babble bullshit. Yeah.
There's something techno Babble. But they got to do it right now. They got to do it right now. And the Borg comes on.
But it's not the Borg. It's Captain Picard. Borg. He turns to the camera and I go, oh my god.
He's been Borg. Yeah. It's like an invasive Britney Spears concert microphone. My face.
Oh. Yeah. He's all pale. And the bottom half of his body is encased in robot stuff.
Robot parts. Yeah. So this episode is a pretty good Riker episode. Probably as good a Riker episode as we'll watch for this TNG run.
Because it's like dealing with, first, it's addressing why ambitious officer would be the number one on someone else's ship for seven years plus. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at this point, it's only three years.
At this point, it's only been three. But he is number one only enterprise for a long, long time. Still in the movies. He's Picard's first officer.
So yeah, it goes on for a while. And yeah, putting him in the position of having to command when Picard gets taken over. And the interesting thing about this from a TV making perspective is this is back in 1990 and you did not have the AV Club publishing posts about whose contract had been renewed for whatever. Right.
And so there was some speculation that Patrick Stewart wouldn't even be back. Because he got bored. Yeah, because he got bored. Right.
And they let that question hang for the entire hiatus. I can't believe that. So mean. Yeah.
Yeah. So this also feels like a genre of cliffhanger that we've actually moved farther away from. Like it's ironic, but it feels like in telling more serialized TV stories generally, we have had less need for the like literally your favorite characters are about to die or are dead or something. And now you have to wait three months.
Yeah, right. Like I think more often you get stuff like the Americans where you do get a conclusion to a story, but then it opens up. Yeah, it opens up. possibilities for future stories.
Right. Yeah. Finale and I feel like like hardcore cliffhangers are just much more rarely done nowadays. Well, the reminiscent of a Nielsen system, right, which has less and less impact on how you monetize TV, although no one's figured out what the other models are.
So you do still see it on network TV shows. I mean, you tend to get the like TV line dot com runs has for years. Michael Aussiello has run a thing where in the in May, he does a scorecard for TV where it's like how many births, how many deaths, how many first kisses, how many like, you know, have for the first time, how many marriages, how many whatever. And it always happens in May because that's like the end of the, the end of the Nielsen season and then the like it will sweep happen again and September when everything starts back up again.
And so in that way this like insane cliffhanger actually feels deeply nostalgic for me. But I was watching this show live. I mean, this is pretty early. Yeah.
Yeah, like you don't get a lot of. Yeah, I was like five years old. We were all super young. Like it's you don't get the old like who shot JR Finale anymore.
You don't. Do these things where somebody's finger is literally hovering over a trigger and then have to wait three months to find out who it was or what they do. Yeah. No, yeah.
So this season like so we watched a couple of weeks ago, we watched yesterday's enterprise, which was a mid season three episode and I mentioned then that that was around the time when the show started to step out from behind the shadow of the original series and people started to really recognize it as a thing that's own that had its own vibe and its own value. And this season finale like it really is sort of capped that off because it was like it is for this show, especially really ambitious and adventurous. I think they do a pretty good job building the tension while also spending a lot of time with characters like Picard and Guy didn't have a nice moment. Like, we have a good moment.
Like, it just hits a lot of notes. It's doing a lot of stuff and it's doing it. I mean, I would remiss if I didn't point out that they do it with another fucking poker scene. But I hope there's so many more about this piece.
I love finding out more about my favorite characters through poker. I love it. It's just such an efficient way to learn about people, Kitty. Yeah.
I just don't understand why you don't like it. I know it's not a dick, but still. Yeah. God.
It's like I have PTSD about the green table. As soon as I see that green table, it's just like, god damn it. Yeah. Poker traumatic stress disorder.
It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true.
It's true. It's true. It's true that there is really nothing like that reveal with Picard sort of turning and seeing the Borg stuff all over his face. It feels in that way a lot more grave than the original series really ever does.
It's not like Shatner's never in trouble. It's not like TNG never gets wacky. But to literally have Picard have something, it is just surprising and effective how horrifying it is. Yeah.
And that's what I've been home by the emotional impact it clearly has on him in family. Yeah. And I'm just going to go out on a limb based on what I understand of Star Trek, the original series and also William Shatner's star quality and feel like I doubt there were a lot of moments of emotional vulnerability from Captain Kirk. Yeah.
And you've got the most introspective. They explored some of that stuff sometimes. But the original series is so aggressively episodic. Every single episode of that show is a little capsule.
Yeah. And so no cliffhangers, no light serialization, no anything. So it was just not able and was not interested in telling these kinds of stories that would have deeper or longer lasting effects on the characters, which is the reality of TV at the time. Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's no Netflix, no anything.
Right. Yeah. So yeah. So that I think is a really interesting element of this because it's at a moment when TV is actually still very close to that previous model.
And instead you get these tiny flickers of stuff starting to move away. And I think it's hard for us now to really to even look at that at that cliffhanger or just the fact that the board come back and remember like how exciting, how thrilling that is for the audience the first time. Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Like it's very much a reward for being a faithful viewer. Yeah. And we take that for granted now.
We do. You expected it was just to spend time with characters that you liked. Yeah. And I do think it pays off.
I mean, I think you're right. It's not that the original series didn't have sort of character development that happened, but it was more it was I think the character development that we think of a TV now is linear, right? Where you like you have something that happens and then something else happens and you kind of they grow from events. And even in a Star Trek next generation universe where the plots themselves are episodic, you can still feel Riker growing linearly as a character, right?
Stuff that happened in the past, more particularly stuff that happened in the past continues to like bug him and effect him, Picard magic flute aside way. And so you grow with the characters even when the plot's not really grow with the characters. The original series is like is like character development by accretion, right? Where it's instead of stuff ever growing linearly, it's just like a stack of stuff that gets piled higher and higher and higher on top of each other.
And so instead of having any kind of time connection between all that stuff, it's just that instead you've got a lot of stuff and so inevitably the characters develop because it's like all piled on top of each other and there's just a lot more data, you know, but not well anyway. Not that kind. Not that data. There's just a lot more information, right?
So you just you feel closer to that character because you just you have to because you have experienced them linearly even if the show hasn't actually written them that way. So one thing we didn't address is that in addition to establishing that like oh my god, Picard has been bored cliffhanger. They're also like Picard has been bored and like Riker is gonna straight up murder him, right? Yeah.
And that brings us to the second of these two episodes where that attack happens and like does jack shit to the Borg. Because they have to wait. And the Borg threw Picard like bitch, like we know everything you know. We've absorbed Picard's intelligence into our intelligence and like now there's no possible way for you to outsmart us.
So this leads to Geynon I believe. No yes. Geynon having a conversation with Riker where he's like we can get him back as if you let him go. Yeah, yes.
Which is very meaningful. Yeah, it's very in the spirit of my favorite my dad's favorite dad joke which is to make big eyes at you and say your nearest exit maybe behind you. Anyhow, so your nearest exit maybe behind you. The only way to get Captain Picard back is to let him go.
So Riker does and he comes up with his brilliant plan. The like full juice of which again I don't totally understand or I think he basically like does part of the plan they talked about with Picard and Picard knows to ignore it and that provides enough of like a self cover for like a special kind of ship. Yeah, like using the knowledge that the board have through Picard against them. Yes, yes.
So data and more get onto the Borg ship where Picard slash Locutus is stationed and they okay and also like that is confusing like the board like how is there any individual Borg named? Yeah. So they don't have names. It's very weird.
Yeah, it's another one of those things where the idea doesn't quite jive with what makes interesting television or an interesting story. So you can't like necessarily just have this nameless faceless mob and have it be infinitely interesting and well you probably can but they hadn't figured out how. Yeah, right. So the movie First Contact takes us a step further where now there is a Borg queen and there's still a hive mind but there's somebody on top of it.
That's pretty smart. Yeah. So that's how they get around it for that but that's that's yeah. That's okay.
Here it's just kind of an incongruity. Yes. Like you can see why they would grab Picard because they would be able to use all that knowledge and they do like we kind of light it over it but they do blow up like 30 Federation ships. Oh yeah.
That's real bad. Real bad. Deep Space Nine actually starts during this battle where the captain of that show is on one of the ships and like his wife dies and it's like this whole thing like this whole emotional journey for him is like having a life kill by the door. Do you have signs about feelings?
Yeah it is. Yeah. Yeah. And this is one of the situations where like it is sort of a struggle with a show like this where like maybe at the time when it was airing you had no idea who might die but like I get the time that I am viewing know all the people who don't die and it's most of them.
So it's using a very I'm gonna say something that's gonna make our listeners mad hold on to your hats. JK Rowling is kind of like oh no like we're gonna kill so many people Voldemort so bad this one character you only know because alphabetically her name comes up near the top of this house. Her aunt died. Oh my god.
Crushing. Yeah. Which is true the first Susan Bones. Yeah.
Yeah. Who literally never has a speaking line otherwise. Okay. Yes.
Anyhow. Yes. Yeah. So I don't know that the full impact of those deaths really had really hit me in this context because you're just like okay there's some chips something happened with them.
Yeah. I mean that does happen a couple of times because sometimes Picard will call down and he'll be like whoa we take damage and Jordy will be like yeah 18 people died. Yeah. Like you have some like he yells at you like he lost 18 crew members and you're like did you.
Yeah. Let's never see them. It's very like if there's if there's one thing the show doesn't do super great it's like you never feel the impact of any lives being lost if they're not part of the like the fucking bridge crew. Right.
Like people people in basis can yeah of like introducing a character and making you attach them rapidly just to kill them off. You know George RR Martin things. The show does do that sometimes. It does.
That's the whole thing about lower deaths is about. But it did that in the episode we watched for the last batch and I liked that but it doesn't necessarily do that consistently. Sometimes it just like throws a number at you and expects it to have an impact and you're like does it. It makes me wonder like how much staff redundancy is there because like a lot of people die and like stuff works pretty well.
Yeah. It still keeps going. Yeah. Yeah.
I guess nobody's irreplaceable. Seriously. Anyhow. And people and data managed to beam on to the board cube.
Yep. And they get and they have to do it. They do it. There's like a shooting scene and they like shoot a bunch of Borg and then war for like rushes at Picard and like grapples with him and like a really bad fight choreography.
Very bad. Very bad choreography. Yeah. And then.
And just the high def remastered like it looks great but you can really really tell when the stunt doubles are out. Yeah. Really really obvious. I was going to say the production values are generally like we're way on the upswing from the beginning.
But one thing I forgot to mention from Q who that I really love is that like Q sitting in one of the conference chairs around the table and he he disappears all of a sudden as he was want to do and yet somehow the chair still goes boing back and forth as though like a person actually just stood up from the chair. Anyhow. Other than that and the fight choreography I think generally the production values are much stronger here. But then they get Picard slash low cutest back onto the ship and he like he's still part of the collective.
Right. And he likes classes data. And then you're outdated tech like the Borg's going to have no use for you. But go and it's like oh my god we can't get to Captain Picard but like maybe I can control the machinery inside Captain Picard and like we can get back to him that way and spoiler alert data is totally right and data totally takes on the fucking Borg.
Yeah. I don't think like basically just hook them up with it like a USB cable on both sides. All right data do it. Yep.
David data can you open the terminal and send in a command to their. Yeah. Open pod bay door open pod bay door. Yeah.
Yeah. And Picard is strong enough to push back against the Borg and to tell data like the one command you can give the Borg collectively through their link with Picard but they don't have like sufficient security protocols to protect against and that's basically that they should go to sleep. So yeah why wouldn't you protect against that? Well I guess they will now.
Yeah they will likely really will. Yeah. I didn't and I've seen this episode several times and I'm still a little hazy on how you draw the line between sleep and total explosion but that's how it is the Borg cubed totally explodes. Well because they're sleeping so they can't I feel like I understand this at the time but whatever.
Yeah. So then the Borg ship totally explodes but in a way that's like wow that's probably not the only Borg ship. Yeah. Props not.
And Captain Picard is restored to himself and the end of the episode of like a scar from his. Like Borg band aids. Yeah Borg band aids and he says he describes himself as feeling almost human again and that's the end of that episode and then family we have episode two of season four family where lots of characters have different family shit going on. So we open up and like Worf finds out because they're all close to earth because that's what the Borg we're gonna fucking annihilate.
So every family can get to them and so did they do. Right. Yeah. Can we just like really quick so we don't have to ever talk about it again just knock out the C plot with Wesley.
Yeah. Oh, what's what's like dad left him a tape in which he says like you're Wesley I love you and mostly is like real sad about it. Okay. End of plot.
End of plot. Except to say that it becomes clear that genetic wingness if it exists in the Crusher family definitely from Wesley's dad. All the wing jeans were on the male side of that family. It's because Dr.
Crusher is great. So plot the first pot we encounter is like Worf hears that his adoptive parents are coming aboard the ship and he's like oh what are they doing? Fucking never visit a Klingon at work. This is so unprofessional.
They don't understand me and some stuff about the de-comendation that he wrote to them about comes up and they come on board and one they have inexplicable Russian accents which isn't inexplicable unto itself and it's like why do you have Russian accents when your adoptive son does not have a Russian accent. And also this is like going back to the Canadianism thing but like how they're still accent. Yeah right. How can I still recognize a Russian accent?
I mean as you get into a bit with Picard's family like surely there are still people on Earth who see their character as a double. Who live in France but they're going to be secretly stowable. Yes. Sure sure.
Sure do. But I mean as is as is traditional. Yeah. So and then we find out that Catherine Picard is like shockingly taking a vacation which is completely different.
And everyone's like whoa you okay buddy? Yeah. She does not do the greatest job of navigating that question. No.
It's like if she wants him to take a vacation she should just like chill the F out and like let him take a goddamn vacation. No. I don't know maybe after three years with him she knows what persuasion methods were best. Like she doesn't have to persuade him.
He's already persuaded himself. I guess. Anyhow. So I like that little scene with them but maybe that's just me.
I mean I like it. I just don't think it's just his further evidence that you're going to evaluate Troy by the same standards that we would evaluate a present day Earth therapist then yeah sometimes she kind of is not very good at it. I'm so sorry it needs to be criticizing your crush. No.
No I know. I'm going to have a crush it's going to be on Gates. I know. Gates McBaden is your girl.
Anyhow so Captain Picard is going back down to Havra. Oh sorry. Le Bar France. To visit his family's vineyard.
And speaking of crushes. Oh my god. He wears. Okay so we can just go I'm just going to get a drink or something.
We can criticize this faction in the magic flute episode brutally. And this episode made us eat like all of our words. And also there's like this shot right at the beginning where he's like walking through the leafy arbor. Yeah like street and he's like in the shadows and they've got the v-neck but somehow the v-neck works so well I don't know how they're like yeah like a wrap it's like a wrap.
It's like a wrap. It happens. And I think you can see on his brother's thing that it's basically like a collarless shirt except instead of buttoning down the middle it buttons like four inches to the side. Over the side.
Yeah. Instead of having it buttoned up because you know Captain Picard is not buttoned up he has it like no but he's a warm day down to his navel and you're getting just some like just like a beautiful like your chest hair and like and like the whole shape of him really is coming along such a good shape. It was so really it was really it's just really changed my feelings about the kind of silky blouses men should wear which is apparently just that one. And you know it's so funny because it's not like the Star Trek uniform is not form fitting.
The Star Trek uniform is its own kind of hot but like this is just this is a different I was like all ready to like to like hop on board hanging on him was also like I wanted to be hanging on him Picard the like winemaker right I was all ready to like watch him. Did you ever see that movie with with Keanu Reeves where he's like making the wine and there's like there's like a lot of hot sexy wine making scenes like I was there I was there. I was there. He fights with his dick of a brother and his brother is like old things are the best new things are terrible.
New things suck. And Picard is like I feel like we don't have to choose one or the other and he's like stop saying things like that to my son you monster. Yes and they mud wrestle. They mud wrestle.
Well some some some some stun actors mud wrestle. We've heard of. The white choreography with the stun actors is not that bad and then when you get in close and it's actually Patrick Stewart and the other guy it's basically just like slippery slap fighting. Very different.
But the mud fighting although it is occasioned by Jean Luke's brother being such a dick is apparently like a cathartic thing that Jean Luke really needed and they like laugh and then Jean Luke like breaks down in tears. Yeah about the horror of having been part of the board and like committed all of this destruction and like been powerless to stop it while they used him to like destroy a ton of ships and kill people including that guy from DS9's wife. So they go home and they drink wine and they come in and it sounds like they're singing a fake background song from MSD3K. They're just like sitting in a room going like but um but um but um but um but um but.
That's the odd couple so like whatever it is. And in war spot I don't know. In war spot we basically just learn about like how is it responsible to be an adoptive parent. In this case across species but you can sort of apply it like across.
Yeah it's clearly it's clearly metaphorically yeah. And like warff's parents chill it and if you are considering adopting a cross race like you should sit down with this episode and like learn some of the loving strategies that they deploy and learn how comfortable they were making warff's heritage a central part of his upbringing. Even if it wasn't theirs. Up to including cooking some like royal gross sounding foods.
Something un-food yeah. But they're really sweet. They're adorable actors the way that they're interacting with warff is like very winning and they're worried about him because he went to the Klingon planet and he received a de-combination. Yeah we had a accommodation.
Disgusting. And he doesn't think that they would understand how like shaming this was to him. Well and also generally believes that like he shouldn't have any kind of emotional support right like he believes that he should like bear this by itself. His parents are like yeah I get that that's the Klingon thing but like we love you.
And they're really good. Sort of going off on that adopted idea they're really good at trying really hard to respect who he is and what he wants while also pointing out that they're there to support him and they don't want him to be sad and alone. But also not being like I imagine the hard thing would be really not being insulted by the fact that your kid was like just pushing you away as hard as you. And they really aren't like they really are constantly trying to just make space for whatever he needs and not take it personally that it's really tough being him.
And the blood soup sounds gross. So gross. And his dad is also like the most dad of. Oh my dad.
Very very cute. He's just so obsessed with the ship and like he's done this schematics for so long and he just knows where all the elevators are. He keeps telling everyone that he has all the diagrams and stuff. Oh man it's so it's so dad because like of course if you hear that your son is going to be serving on a star show you all those all those diagrams.
Yeah. It's so cute. Yeah it's very cute. It's the B story is very good.
And it cuts the A story pretty well because the Patrick the Captain Picard stuff like it gets a little heavy in there for a bit. Yeah. And also his brother is just so unrelentingly dickish for like a fucking dick. Most of the episodes that you just need to step away from that a little bit.
Yep. And the C story is fine because it takes up like three minutes. Yeah it does not take very long. No it's great.