The Prelude
It had been over a year, and a season-and-a-half of television, since TNG viewers had been introduced to the mysterious, ominous threat of the Borg. Whisked beyond the outskirts of the furthest reaches of Federation Space in the season two episode “Q Who,” the Enterprise bore witness to the unknown that could undo not just itself, but all of the Federation. So when season three of the show climaxed in “The Best of Both Worlds,” opening on a missing colony with devastation eerily similar to what was seen back in “Q Who,” the tone is immediately set—and it’s a tension that builds and builds in its first half unlike anything the show had done up to that point.
There’s moments here and there, like the realization from Admiral Hanson and Commander Shelby that Starfleet has to prepare for a potential invasion force, or the destruction of the USS Lalo in the dead of night, as the Borg got closer and closer. The stage is set for a one-on-one encounter between the Enterprise and the Borg cube, but both our heroes and the audience know how that battle will go. Except it doesn’t, with a twist on a twist—the Enterprise’s tussle with the cube is brief, immediately swept up in a race against time and a hostage situation when the Borg capture Captain Picard and begin dashing for Sector 001: Earth, the heart of the Federation itself.
Although the Enterprise managed to shunt the cube out of warp, doing so led to a horrific discovery: the Borg hadn’t just abducted Picard, but assimilated him, transforming him into the command drone Locutus. The best of Starfleet’s tactical acumen, merged with the technological might of the Collective, the perversion of one of its greatest leaders, all as horrific as the Enterprise being left battered and bruised in Locutus’ wake. And so the stage was set: The Next Generation’s stars were out of the fight, and 40 ships, unlike anything marshaled on screen in Star Trek before, were made ready to face off against the shadow of a fallen hero.
