In the hands of the Borg / Target Earth

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Episode of the series Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century
title Part 1: In the hands of the Borg
Part 2: Target earth
Original title Part 1: The Best of Both Worlds
Part 2: The Best of Both Worlds - Part II
TNG DE title neu.svg
Country of production United States
original language English
length 2 times 45 minutes
classification Season  3 , episode 26;
Season 4 , episode 1
74th and 75th episode overall ( list )
First broadcast June 16 and Sep 22 1990
German-language
first broadcast		 11 and 12 Aug. 1993 on ZDF
Rod
Director Cliff Bole
script Michael Piller
production Rick Berman , Ira Steven Behr , David Livingston , Lee Sheldon
music Ron Jones
camera Marvin V. Rush
cut JP Farrell
Guest appearance (s)
chronology

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family meeting

In the hands of the Borg and target earth are episodes 74 and 75 of the American science fiction television series Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century . Both tell a continuous story. Since the first episode ends with a cliffhanger , which is also the end of the third season of the series, the two-parter goes beyond a season boundary. The two-parter tells of the capture of the Enterprise Captain Picard by the hostile, cybernetic Borg, and of how the Enterprise crew tries to prevent the Borg from assimilating the earth and its people. The two episodes are among the most popular of the series and Star Treks overall. The story was taken up again in some episodes of the series and - also by means of newly filmed flashbacks - by the 1996 movie Star Trek: The First Contact , the commercially and creatively most successful of the four films for which The Next Century was adapted. The prologue to the pilot, The Envoy from the spin-off series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , also plays during the plot of this two-parter.

action

In the episode Time Leap with Q of the second season , the Borg had their first and since then only appearance within the series.

In the hands of the Borg

The officer and Borg specialist Lieutenant Commander Shelby, who is introduced to Captain Picard by Starfleet Admiral Hanson, confirms the suspicion of the Enterprise crew that the Borg are responsible for the destruction of a Federation outpost with over 900 residents. La Forge is therefore working with his colleagues to optimize the Enterprise's defenses for battles against the Borg. After the Enterprise has received the distress call of a Federation spaceship that is being attacked by a Borg ship and is on its way to its last position, Picard is requested by the approaching Borg ship to beam over. Since the latter refuses to accept the Borg's request, the Borg cube captures the Enterprise with a tractor beam and begins to cut open the hull of the ship with a phaser, killing at least eleven crew members and injuring others. After the Enterprise has been released by a tip from Shelby, Picard leads the ship, pursued by the Borg, into a space nebula , where it cannot be located by the Borg at first.

Shelby puzzles Riker about her claim to Riker's post as first officer on the Enterprise, as she is certain that Riker would accept the recently offered command of Starfleet Melbourne . She later tells Riker openly that he is in her way. Although Riker declines the offer to Shelby and Picard, in conversation with Troi he is unsure about the question of which ship his real place is on. He judges Shelby's repeated unauthorized behavior as insubordination , which is why he disciplines her several times.

While La Forge works to modify the deflector shields to increase the tactical performance of the Enterprise, the Borg bombard the ship with magnetic charges, forcing it to leave the fog. A little later the Borg capture the Enterprise again with the tractor beam, kidnap Picard onto the cube and set course for the solar system . The Borg state that they intend to assimilate Federation culture and technology into their collective, and that Picard should serve them to convey this message to the Federation. While the Enterprise pursues the Borg, an away team can sabotage the cube of its warp speed, but cannot bring back Picard, who is obviously already assimilated. Picard then introduces himself to the Enterprise crew as a Borg named "Locutus" and asks them to surrender to the Borg. Temporarily under pressure that the Borg will likely regain their warp speed soon, Riker orders the cube to be destroyed using the modified deflector shields.

Target earth

Because Picard, aka Locutus, foresees the Enterprise crew's plan to destroy the Borg ship, the Enterprise's modified deflector shields prove useless; the Borg continue to fly towards Earth. While the crew is making repairs to the Enterprise that is tracking the Borg cube, Riker is appointed captain by Hanson; In turn, Riker appoints Shelby as his new first officer. In the Wolf 359 star system, an armada consisting of more than 40 star fleet spaceships stands in the way of the Borg, but is devastated in the process. The Enterprise reached the system too late and found only the drifting shipwrecks, including the ship commanded by Hanson and the Melbourne .

Guinan advises Riker to mentally separate himself from Picard in order to face the challenge of stopping the Borg ship and bringing Picard back. As a result of their advice, Riker has a plan he has devised and first separates the saucer section from the drive section. This distracts the Borg from the project Datas and Worfs , who approach the cube unnoticed in a shuttle ship and can thus beam Picard onto the Enterprise.

While the Borg are already in the solar system, approaching Earth and demanding the unconditional surrender of the Federation, Data establishes a data connection with Picard's Borg implants and thus the Borg collective. He can send the Borg ship a simple command to switch to sleep mode. This will stop the Borg ship and put it in regeneration mode. Because the command also irritates the collective, the self-destruction sequence is triggered in the Borg cube. At the last second, Riker lets the Enterprise fly out of the explosion radius.

Dr. Crusher frees Picard - with a few exceptions - from his Borg implants. Picard retains full memories of his time as a Borg. Shelby leaves the Enterprise.

reception

The episodes were highlighted in various leaderboards. In the list of the ten best episodes of the series published by Entertainment Weekly , the two-parter took second place. British magazine Empire singled out Target Earth as the best episode of the series. The US magazine Cinefantastique (1990) rated the first part with four out of four possible stars: Piller's script was "outstanding" and made the episode one of the best and most exciting. The special effects are top notch and prove that The Next Century is superior to movies in every way. The magazine gave the second part three and a half stars and highlighted the teaser as outstanding, the music as sensational and the battle scenes in space as spectacular. However, the episode is not epic enough, as the resolution takes place in Data's laboratory instead of in space.

The episodes were nominated a total of 5 times for an Emmy Award in 1991 . There were two nominations - one per episode - in the category Best Achievement in Visual Special Effects . Target earth was awarded in the categories Best Sound Editing for a Series and Best Sound Mixing for a Drama Series , in the category Best Artistic Direction for a Series the nomination remained.

production

The budget was around $ 1.3 million per episode. $ 980,000 could be refinanced through advertising, which meant a loss of approximately $ 300,000. The official reason for the cliffhanger ending of the third season and the spanning of the time gap between the third and fourth season was that the audience wanted to be guaranteed a fourth season. Michael Piller claimed that when shooting began, they had no idea how the second part would end. George Murdock played Admiral Hanson and already starred in Star Trek V as " God ". In the first version of the script, Data and Picard were supposed to be kidnapped by the Borg and welded into one unit. Patrick Stewart, on the other hand, was dissatisfied with the under-utilization of his role, which resulted in only Picard being made a Borg. A television advertisement in which Patrick Stewart was working for the car brand Pontiac , which appeared almost at the same time , showed him alone as Borg with the words: " I am Locutus from Borg ... Have you ever thought of buying a Pontiac? " The laboratory in which Locutus is examined by Data was a rebuilding of the backdrop of the Film-Enterprise Bridge.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Star Trek: The Next Generation": The Top 10 Episodes , in: Entertainment Weekly, September 20, 2007, accessed on March 2, 2014
  2. ↑ The Greatest TV Shows of All Time: Star Trek: The Next Generation , in: Empire, accessed March 2, 2014
  3. ↑ Cinefantastique No. 2, Sep. 1990 (21st year), p. 51
  4. ↑ Cinefantastique No. 2, Oct. 1991 (22nd year), p. 19
  5. ↑ Awards , in: IMDb, accessed on February 28, 2014
  6. ^ Ralph Sander " The Star Trek Universe " - Volume 1 - Page 419 - 426 - Heyne Verlag - ISBN 3-453-07759-8