| Review : |
A piece of brilliance. I had to wait some considerable time to see the second part, and of course they screened the first before it. This may have influenced my opinion, but I cannot say that there was any loss of quality. After the great cliffhanger, it was somehow not a disappointment to see that the weapon had not worked. It seemed more and more useless to fight back, until we saw how it happened, and it was very cleverly done. Data hacking in and activating the 'sleep' command was much better than finding some way to produce a terrible weapon to destroy them. Patrick Stewart as Locutus did not really have to do much, but Jonathan Frakes really held the episode together, although he had some slightly dodge dialogue at some points. The scene between Riker and Guinan in the ready room was really the highlight of the script, where we saw the new captain begin to accept his new role. I also liked Shelby, and it is a real pity that we never saw her again, maybe as a visiting captain in DS9. Perhaps she gave the makers of Voyager a few ideas... On other points, they finally had the sense to separate the saucer section, but did not do the other sensible thing and leave it behind. I also think it was a bit strange to see the Borg cube and the Enterprise rumbling into the solar system at impulse. It added to the drama, but seems very strange with hindsight, almost as though they were stacking up to land at an airport. The last few minutes were interesting, showing Picard returning to his old life. I found it a bit hard to believe that Riker would want to stay put, but he did, and I suppose it was the right decision for the sake of the series. To sum up, as good as it gets. |
| Review : |
With the Federation fleet destroyed at Wolf 359 (laying the groundwork for DS9), Earth's only defence is a squadron of three phallus-shaped and extremely puny fighters that fly directly towards the Borg without shooting at them. Due to Earth's importance and with the Xindi attack in mind, the Sol system does not have any other ships or defensive weapon platforms, so it's up to the E-D to catch the Borg cube (which is faster than a Galaxy class ship) and save Earth. Fortunately, the E-D crew manage to pinch Locutus and use him to access the Borg Collective and they catch up to the Borg when they drop out of warp in Earth orbit. Despite my obvious criticisms, this is another superb effort from the TNG team and I do take into account that they had limited time and a limited budget, I just wish TNG and ENT would bear in mind that Starfleet must be huge and its worlds would be heavily protected in a galaxy of Klingons, Romulans etc. |
