Early Review. Fan Collective – Borg is a fan picked episode collection of the nasty half-man/half-machine collective intent on assimilating all species of life as part of their own. The collection has some gems like the two-part “The Best of Both Worlds” often voted the best STNG episode and the ethical delimma of “I, Borg.” It’s also more than half filled with Voyager episodes and an Enterprise episode. So how does the full collection measure up? Well, depends on what you think of Voyager. Frankly I think it’s a much weaker show than either STNG or my fav DS9 (not included in this collection) which is a problem for me as more than one half of the set is made up of Cap’n Janeway and her bland crew. Still, for fans of the villains who haven’t picked up the season sets these shows are available on (and don’t have my distaste for the Voyager crew) it’s a cheap way to add them to your collection with this handsomely packaged set. It will be availale on March 7. Read on…
Star Trek Fan Collective – Borg
3 Stars
If there was ever a niche DVD set I guess this would be it. The set collects the fans’ ten favorite Borg episodes. All of these episodes are already available on the various season sets of the different Star Trek shows. So this group is for those not willing to put down the cash for those expensive collections or who only like Borg episodes. I could have used a little less Voyager though the episode introducing the character of Seven of Nine and the two-hour time travel series finale have some interesting moments.
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The Borg are half-man/half-machine creatures that assimilate any useful technology and culture they come across and destroy anything they cannot control. The collection collects the fans favorite Borg episodes including their first appearance in “Q Who?” to the rewriting history episode of Enterprise. Some of the episodes are pretty good and some are Voyager episodes so they’re only so-so. Yeah I’m not a fan of Captain Janeway and her wayward crew who couldn’t find their way out of the Delta quadrant with a map and a warp drive.
Here’s a breakdown of the episodes found on the disc:
Enterprise
“Regeneration” – Takes place a hundred years after events in Star Trek: First Contact were excavators find the frozen remains of the Borg invasion force that tried to stop Zefram Cochrane’s warp flight. An interesting riff on The Thing as scientist allow the Borg to come back to life only to need Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and his group to show up to save the day. End result does create some continuity problems as the Federation had never heard of the Borg a couple of hundred years later in…
Star Trek: The Next Generation
“Q Who” – Annoyed by Picard and his crew and wanting to teach them a lesson Q (John de Lancie) sends the Enterprise hundreds of light-years away into the path of the Borg, a cyborg organism with a hive consciousness. Great new villains for the show who would return in…
“The Best of Both Worlds” – Two part episode marking the return of the Borg, the assimilation of Captain Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), and the attack on Earth. Often voted the favorite STNG episode; this two-parter is the gem of the collection.
“I, Borg” – Great ethical episode (a strength of STNG) involves the Enterprise saving a Borg, disconnecting him from the collective, teaching him about individuality, and the plan to use him as a carrier to plant a genocidal virus into the hive mind. What is right? What is wrong? Is Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) an individual or merely a weapon?
“Descent” – Two-part episode involving Lore (Brent Spiner) using the Borg for his own ends who have fractured due to the integration of individualism when Hugh rejoined them. Spiner does a good job in double duty here as the show deals with the consequences of the crew’s decisions in “I, Borg.”
Star Trek: Voyager
“Scorpion” – Two-part episode involving the wayward Voyager entering Borg space on their way home and encountering a species that are even more deadly who are waging war with the Borg. Species 8472 looks more at home on Babylon 5 and the show never really explains “fluidic space” very well but the second episode is noteworthy because it introduces series regular Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).
“Drone” – Yet another transporter accident episode ends up creating a futuristic Borg (J. Paul Boehmer). Not much of interest here and a rather bland rehash of events in DS9‘s “The Abandoned.”
“Dark Frontier” – Two-part episode looking at the hubris of the Voyager crew going toe-to-toe with the Borg and Seven of Nine’s return to the collective. Interesting scenes between the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) and Seven, but they don’t really fit into how the Borg should act in such situations.
“Matrix Zero” – Dreadful two-part episode about a special place some Borgs go when they dream and live as individuals. The complete lack of logic aside the episode is still laughingly bad. Also of interest here the Borg Queen states she was assimilated into the hive when she was young. So…did the Borg not have a Queen until then? How did she become the Queen? Does this even make sense?
“Endgame” – Final two-hour episode of Voyager as the crew battles the Borg and gets help and technology from a future Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). Different view on temporal law and time travel than Roddenberry’s (I wonder what he would have thought of the episode) but the issues are dealt with and the battles with the Borg and discussions of returning home are done well.
Most likely if you like these episodes enough to buy them you’ve already plunked down the heavy cash for the season sets. You don’t get any extras here that would make a must have to be added this to your collection. For fans who enjoy the Borg that haven’t picked up the season sets it is a cheaper alternative but then again you’re getting stuck with an awful lot of Voyager episodes who wasted years of the show unable to come up with any good villains of their own they had to steal them from STNG. I’m also not too fond of the Borg Queen (introduced in First Contact) who totally changes the Borg from a collective computer-like intelligence to a collection of mindless drones under a single leader and all the Voyager episodes put her in the forefront as a Q like villain instead of dealing with the Borg collective.